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| Hiking | 19.99 Miles |
2,925 AEG |
| | Hiking | 19.99 Miles | 8 Hrs 30 Mns | | 2.50 mph |
| 2,925 ft AEG | 31 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Continuing southbound from where I left off last week. Started from the Kelvin-Florence Highway TH and hiked south 10.3 miles to the 3rd dirt road you meet, which goes back to the "highway". On the way out we saw a few groups of backpackers hiking the trail. This is the time of year to do this kind of thing, especially in this area, so it wasn't a surprise to see the 4 or 5 groups that we did. One older couple was from Alaska. They started from the Mexico border and planned to make it at least to Roosevelt, maybe to the Beeline. They had to catch a flight and that was their limiting time factor. I've been enjoying talking to a lot of the backpackers I've seen on this trail and sharing info with them and finding where they're from. Kind of a cool thing about hiking the AZT.
We took our break at the dirt road and saw 2 bikers heading NB, then just after lunch saw one coming SB. After that we saw no one on the trail the rest of the day. Wally forgot his sandwich for lunch so I donated my potato chips to him and half of one my Jimmy John's, which is about the size of one of his sandwiches.
One the way back we took a shortcut down Ripsey Wash, which also seems to double as a road for 4x4ers, which we saw a few of at the start. It's also shown as a road on GoogleMaps. Even before that, we hiked the smaller wash that runs down from below our turnaround point. The trail in this section crossses this wash several times, gaining and losing elevation, which was kind of tiresome after 10+ miles. The wash had wet compacted sand which made the hiking very easy.
Hiking Ripsey Wash back only saved us about a half mile, but easily an additional 1K of elevation gain, as well as a lot of time. I was thinking we would finish at 4:30 or 5, but we were done before 3. This was of particular advantage with the RenFest traffic to deal with on the way back.
On the way out around the 9 or 10 mile mark we saw a Gila Monster, then on the way back in Ripsey Wash we saw a herd of about 5 or 6 deer. The last mile I was feeling pretty sore, seems like 20 miles is close to my limit. I could hike more if I had to, but my legs were getting very sore and hard to move.
Weather was very cool in the morning and breezy on the ridgeline. Warmed up a bit after noon, but never got hot or even very warm. Sunny most of the day with some clouds giving bits of shade here and there. |
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